D'Alessandro 1

Deleuze on Ceddo: Exploring Smooth and Striated Space, Minor and Major Machines,

Lines of Flight, Transversals, and a People to Come

by Desiree D'Alessandro

D'Alessandro 2

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari published A Thousand Plateaus as a sequel to their

former collaborative work in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia volume, Anti-Oedipus. The work

contains a compilation of philosophical chapters on a wide variety of subjects that presents

"itself as a network of 'plateaus' that . . . [can] be read in any order."1 This open-invitation to

deviate from tackling a text in the traditional linear standard instead encourages readers to

choose selections based on preference rather than sequential order. This alternative literary

construction is already in compliance with modes of Minor Literature that Deleuze heralded in

writings by Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. Minor Literature functions as an

immanent critique within the dominant prose of the Literary Machine by incorporating elements

of prose reconfiguration and experimentation. In the same way that the concept of the Rhizome

functions, machinic assemblages and connectors interlock with other machines to generate a

multiplicity of interconnections with additional machines. These circuits of flows, or plateaus

with no hierarchical significance, are characterized in terms of deterritorializing assemblages that

instigate lines of flight. This paper will first examine a passage from Deleuze & Guattari's A

Thousand Plateaus–a chapter on space titled "The Smooth and the Striated." With relative

emphasis on Minor and Major trajectories, this will segue into an examination of lines of flight

presented in Ronald Bogue's book Deleuze on Literature. Lastly, after these concepts are

explicated, they will be extrapolated in application to a potent example of Third Cinema by

Ousmane Sembène titled Ceddo. This application is pertinent and relevant as Third Cinema is by

definition a form of Minor Literature, as it functions from within the hegemony of mainstream

Hollywood cinema.

We begin by developing an abbreviated understanding of the "The Smooth and the

Striated" chapter in A Thousand Plateaus. The chapter title seemingly sets up a binary opposition

D'Alessandro 3

of smooth space versus striated space and articulates that smooth space and striated space–

"nomad space and sedentary space . . . are not of the same nature."2 This binary swiftly dissolves

as Deleuze and Guattari continue, "we must remind ourselves that the two spaces in fact only

exist in mixture: smooth space is constantly being translated, transversed into striated space;

striated space is constantly being reversed, returned to a smooth space."3 Thus the descriptors

"smooth" and "striated" do not communicate in the same way, and contain complex differences

and tendencies toward hybridization that move these categorical imperatives beyond a simple

binary opposition. Next, we will more closely examine the haecceities that have been assigned

for smooth and striated space, respectively, though it should be noted that this artificial

segregation for the sake of examination is not accomplished without much difficulty, as the two

are inherently linked.

Smooth space is described as a nomadic terrain comparable to the desert, steppe, or sea. It

is viewed as an amorphous, infinite space that is open and unlimited in all directions with no

distinct top, bottom, or center. Smooth space is seen as acentered and irregular (heterogeneous)

on many accounts due to a lack of systemized prefiguring space formalities (which we will soon

discover define, in part, striated space). Smooth space is where "its orientations, landmarks, and

linkages are in continuous variation."4 It is a space best examined through close-distance vision

and haptic perception of intensities guided by directionality and free action in an abstract realm

of becoming and creative potential. To articulate further, "the eye itself has a . . . nonoptical

function: no line separates earth from sky, which are of the same substance; there is neither

horizon nor background nor perspective . . . all distance is intermediary."5 The hypothetical

nomad who traverses this smooth space recognizes his home as a "dwelling [that] is subordinated

to the journey; [where] inside space conforms to outside space."6 Lastly, it is important to

D'Alessandro 4

remember that "smooth always possesses a greater power of deterritorialization than the

striated."7

Striated space can be seen as one that has a greater power of territorialization. It is a

terrain comparable to urban cityscapes with a distinct center and delimited dimensionality that is

blockaded on at least one side. Because of its homogeneous striations (concrete intersecting and

intertwining streets, implied latitude and longitude demarcations, etc) striated space is navigated

by optic perceptions "defined by the requirements of long-distance vision: constancy of

orientation, invariance of distance through an interchange of intertial points of reference,

interlinkage by immersion in an ambient milieu, [and] constitution of a central perspective."8 It is

seen as a geometrical and rectilinear space of progress and work. "In striated space, lines or

trajectories tend to be subordinated to points: one goes from one point to another. In the smooth,

it is the opposite: the points are subordinated to the trajectory."9 Yet this quote begins to break

down the very binaries we have just established for the sake of distinction and clarification.

Next, we further explore the quotation that Deleuze and Guattari emphasize: "Nothing

completely coincides, and everything intermingles, or crosses over. This is because the

differences are not objective: it is possible to live striated on the deserts, steppes, or seas; it is

possible to live smooth even in the cities, to be an urban nomad."10

It is pertinent to first consider the space of the sea and how it "was at sea that smooth

space was first subjugated and a model found for laying-out and imposition of striated space."11

This increasingly strict striation of the sea aimed to map the terrain of the ocean but the smooth

space still exists in depths below the surface. It becomes "obvious that the striation thus

constituted has its limits: they are reached not only when the infinite (either infinitely large or

D'Alessandro 5

small) is brought in, but also when more than two bodies are considered."12 In this instance

smooth space begets striated space, which in turn begets a hybridized smooth-striated space as a

result as "it is as though a smooth space emanated, sprang from a striated space, but not without

a correlation between the two, a recapitulation of one in the other, a furtherance of one through

the other."13 The smooth and striated spaces continually exist in the presence of each other, in

combination formats, and both possess stops and trajectories, though of different priority levels.

It is where this priority comes into play that we begin to define a space in increasing direction of

the smooth or striated and correlational impetuses.

Lastly, in this examination of "The Smooth and the Striated" chapter in A Thousand

Plateaus, it is of critical importance to recognize the broad spectrum and metaphorical nature

that Deleuze and Guattari use the word "space." Space, in the instances we have discussed, does

not have to be taken literally in the physical sense of the word, but can–and should–be

understood and interpreted in an ontological definition that spans across different fields, as the

categorical models provided in the chapter include (in order of appearance): Technological,

Musical, Maritime, Mathematical, Physical, and Aesthetic. With this established, could one not

draw parallels between Minor and Major Literature in terms of smooth and striated space? This

is where our relational exploration of similar themes in Ronald Bogue's Deleuze on Literature

will enter the analysis.

The examination of Minor and Major Literary Machines is not a farfetched consideration.

Bogue points out that in their previous collaboration in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia

volume, Anti-Oedipus, "Deleuze and Guittari articulate a general theory of nature as 'machining'

of flows, and it is from this extensively broad conception of the machine that they [emphasize its

D'Alessandro 6

function and] purpose is to avoid closure and keep flows moving."14 Thus it does not function

like a train or a teleological machine with a destination or result in mind. A much more accurate

analogy would be to that of a Rube Goldberg contraption with no end objective or goal; a

machine that operates for the sake of doing so, and is therefore potentially extendable to infinity,

with no definite inside or outside. When critically examining these machines, one should prompt

machinic questions:

What does it do? How does it work? How does it interconnect with other works? How do those works in turn interlock with other machines? Again, it is pertinent to reemphasize that the machinic assemblage is not single-mindedly

formulaic in its output. The output is that of the multiplicity––endlessly divergent, colonizing

and growing, inclusionary of any/all contexts through a Deleuzean transversal logic. Bogue

reaffirms that "the machine is always unfinished. It is a process in perpetual motion"15 and "its

functioning makes of itself an open multiplicity . . . a spreading rhizome."16

Deleuze and Guitarri's capacious nature can help us better comprehend the direct

relationship between Minor and Major Machines and smooth and striated space. Minor Machines

always tweak the structure of a Major system from within–an immanent critique from inside the

formal trappings of the Major Machine. In relation to space: "What interests us in operations of

striation and smoothing are precisely the passages or combinations: how the forces at work

within space continually striate it, and how in the course of its striation it develops other forces

and emits new smooth spaces.17 Thus within these Machines and spaces there are lines:

D'Alessandro 7

Lines are dynamic and abstract. Always in motion, never static, lines may leave lingering traces, but they are vectors, trajectories, courses of movement and becoming, some so predictable in their journeys that they may be charted, emaciated by intersecting regular trajectories, graphed by grids of coordinated vectors, but others as erratic as the line of flight, a vital, nonorganic zigzag passing between things.18

Bogue also adds that lines "may be equally those of life, of a work of literature or art, of a

society, according to a system of coordinates that is retained."19 In Minor Literature and smooth

space, the lines of the dominant Major Literature and striated space are being effaced and "are

rendered mere vectors, directions, movements–what Deleuze and Guittari speak of as 'flows' in

Anti-Oedipus."20 These lines do not translate to literal Lines within a Literary Machine per se, as

Bogue clarifies: "We do not want to speak only of lines of writing, lines of writing conjoin with

other lines, lines of life, lines of fortune and misfortune, lines that make up the variation of the

line of writing itself, lines that are between the lines that are written."21 It is important to note

that other fields such as Art Theory and Film Theory borrow from the Literary model. Most

literary theory is the backbone for the analysis of the image, whether it is still or moving.

Examining what the disciplines have to do in order to adapt this theory to their own field is

critical, and it is in the gaps and slippages between its literary origins and image-base when

interesting developments occur. Regardless of discipline, all work shares the same highest

function–that of tracing a line of flight.22

The lines of flight concept developed by Deleuze and Guittari is aptly described by Josh

Lerner, a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research:

Lines of flight are creative and liberatory escapes from the standardization, oppression, and stratification of society. Lines of flight, big or small, are available to us at any time and can lead in any direction. They are instances of thinking and

D'Alessandro 8

acting ‘outside of the box’, with a greater understanding of what the box is, how it works, and how we can break it open and perhaps transform it for the better.23

Thus lines of flight are concurrent with definitions of smooth space and Minor Literature.

Lines of flight "trace an uncharted course and depart the paths of conventional sense and

preexisting codes. Hence, too 'there is always treason in a line of flight', a betrayal of 'the world

of dominant significations and established order'."24 There is a rebellion working from within

Striated Spaces and Major Machines. Bogue continues, "The conjunction of flows and

becoming-other produces general deterritorialization, which 'liberates a pure matter, it undoes

codes, it carries away expressions and contents, states of things and statements on a zigzag,

broken line of flight'."25 The description of this zigzag, broken line of flight reiterates through the

transversal philosophy at work. Understanding Deleuze's appreciation for works that instigate the

transversal, open-ended functioning of Minor Literature, we recognize that it is its own literary

machine and "an instrument of social critique . . . in that he diagnoses the diabolical powers of

the future and prescribes lines of flight from those powers [and] is itself part of a larger complex

of social and material machines."26 This interpenetrating line of flight, as Bogue puts it, "is the

line of creation and 'experimentation-life', and whether 'individuals or groups, we are made up of

lines'."27 He elaborates, "to trace a line of flight is also to 'go off the track,' which suggestions

that routines of daily life are also lines, railways of prescribed activities, ruts of habit, coded

career paths, programmed highways and byways of socially sanctioned interaction."28

Everything thus references transversally, endlessly to other things beyond itself.

Ultimately, Deleuze and Guittari recognize that the lines or cracks that fissure one's

routines disintegrate older certainties and identities, thereby leaving one without discernable

coordinates for future action.29 It is in this moment where pure potential is actualized and

D'Alessandro 9

realized as a state of becoming, which in turn prompts the ponderings of a people yet to come

into being. The result never regresses by creating a new unifying whole or totality, but instead

encourages a result which is always open to future transformation and metamorphosis. As

previously iterated, the critical projection of these people should prompt machinic questions:

How do they transform? How will time or future interconnections affect this transformation? How does this transformation work? What will this transformation create?

Now the reader has been provided an abbreviated analysis through the selected works of

Deleuze, Guattari and Bogue. Topics examined have been smooth and striated space in relation

to Major and Minor Literature, lines of flight, transversals, and people to come. Each work

illustrates the dissolution of negative epistemological binaries and instead foregrounds an

affirmative ontological theoretical production "where difference is a matter of 'and' rather than

'or,' of movement and flow . . . [in] a philosophy of becoming rather than being.30 It is my aim to

now introduce the application of these concepts and principles to a Third Cinema format, in a

film carefully selected for its multiplicitous hybridization of the concepts we have discussed until

now: Ceddo.

Ceddo, which translates to Outsiders, is directed by Ousmane Sembène and is set in the

dry coastal region of West Africa in Senegal, during an indeterminate time in the past––between

the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Princess Dior Yassine, daughter to king Demba War,

has been kidnapped by a group of Wolof-speaking Ceddo in protest of forced conversion to

Islamic Law. The plot revolves around traditional African society being pressured by Islamic and

European influence, religious colonization, and the African slave trade.

D'Alessandro 10

I begin by excerpting dialog from Ceddo that highlights the primary force of conflict:

Elder Ceddo: The country is divided into two camps. Two corpses divide the camps . . . Your Imam preaches that once dead, you are destined for paradise and we are destined for hell. Is religion worth the life of a man? My response is... No!31

It is also pertinent to note that this excerpt comes strategically at the half-way mark

between the film's beginning and end. The distinction drawn here, between religious persecution

and the Ceddo being left to their own beliefs, begets a relational resemblance to Smooth and

Striated space. In Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics, author Steven

Shaviro also draws these spatial parallels in relation to religious order:

'God's order . . . [is one] of exclusion. And it is on the other hand, inside the order of the Antichrist, the distinction (difference, divergence, decentering) becomes such an affirmative and affirmed power'. This suggests a Nietzchean reversal of perspective, a continual movement back and forth between the order of God on the one hand and the order of Antichrist on the other. In one direction, the disjunctive synthesis tends toward exclusion; in the other direction, toward multiplicity and affirmation. But neither of these movements is ever completed.32

If we maintain this regimented distinction that drives the plot, we overly simplify the

more convoluted, machinic interconnections of additional forces at work. The multiplicitous

invasive colonizing presences, hierarchies and corresponding languages are all threatening the

indigenous Ceddo population: Islamic priests, French colonizers, European tradesmen, etc. All of

these influences are corroding the "traditional, polytheistic, feudal, warlike Wolof culture [of the

Ceddo] . . . [M]atriarchal inheritance patterns . . . are giving way to patriarchal patterns . . .

[T]radition and tolerance are [also] giving way."33 In addition to muddled inheritance patterns

being depicted in the film through the princess Dior betrothal debate, the traditional respect for

the Ceddo at Council is also being discarded. The aforementioned excerpt of film dialogue where

D'Alessandro 11

the elder Ceddo inquire if religion is worth a man's life is only heard after they request a presence

and are granted permission to even address the Council. Concluding their address, they

emphasize that their presence has never been excluded from the Council and that no decision can

be made without them.

Attire, fighting methods and weaponry are also shifting. Two battles take place in the

film where Biram and Saxewar individually challenge the Ceddo who kidnapped princess Dior.

It is interesting to first note the counterpoint between settings; where the warriors were elected in

the village as a space of slavery and colonialism and the kidnapping Ceddo harbors the princess

in the bush, a space of heroism and tradition. This rift is emphasized by the wardrobe of the

battling parties, where elected elite and champions from the village are garbed in brightly

colored fabrics that today are associated with Africa, though they have the Indonesian origins

and were made available to the villagers through the European slave tradesman. There are scenes

that depict this trade juxtaposed with a later close up shot of a female Ceddo spooling raw cotton

into thread around a stick as the elaborately dressed elites parade past her. The Ceddo kidnapper

is dressed in these potentially more indigenous materials, in less variegated colors that match the

warm and natural tones of the bush. Biram and Saxewar do not have this camouflaging

advantage and their seemingly superior single shot rifles work as a further detriment. Reload

time gives the kidnapping Ceddo the perfect opportunity to assail his assault with more

traditional and organic weaponry: bow and arrow, sand and a sharp stick. Saxewar's garb has a

further shortcoming; a large mirror accessory that catches the sun that reveals his position. The

final noticeable shift in attire pertains to the Ceddo who converted to Islam following the Imam,

wearing knitted taqiyah and brilliant white robes that contrast greatly with their dark ethnic

complexion. Arguably, the most dynamic character in the film, the king's nephew Madir Faim

D'Alessandro 12

Fall, goes through a distinct wardrobe shift. He goes from wearing the brilliant white Muslim

robe and discards it after renouncing the religion and his status as a royal. He then "begins to

wear the traditional cowry shells and embraces traditional fetishes of his people; assumes the life

of a simple Ceddo, even if that means having to share their fate of defeat and slavery."34

The film deploys a number of additional formal elements that relate to theoretical content

we have already discussed; namely that of machines. I will briefly examine the signifiers that are

presented in the film as metonymic components of larger machines. Perhaps the strongest

feuding signifiers in the film have to do with the relics that seemingly diverge the village: the

Muslim rosary of the Imam and the religion of the Islamic converts and the tribal Ceddo people's

ceremonial staff known as Samp. Quite frequently throughout the film, close-ups on these items

fill the frame and juxtapose back and forth to reinforce the war that is waging in this African

village. The material and aesthetic of these items too carries referential weight, as the Samp is

made of a dark, primitive wood blending with the village surroundings where the foundation of

their huts are also made of sticks. Additionally, the Samp is continually placed into the earth so

that it stands erect, signifying the authority of this item as natural and originates from the earth.

The Imam's Muslim rosary however is of a foreign material, artificial yellow and always within

his hands being fiddled and caressed, signifying that this relic empowers primarily himself.

Another important signifier in the film is the manufactured-looking mobile umbrella that is

carried over the Imam and the converts, as opposed to the non-transportable shade refuges that

were pre-constructed for the king and elites. Given the timeframe of the film, this potentially

suggests a signification of the African Diaspora movement, and as the Ceddo become

disconnected with their territory, religious persecution will always be an impending threat. This

becomes most evident as Ceddo slaves are "branded with the fleur de lys, the emblem of

D'Alessandro 13

monarchical France."35 This signifier becomes a "precise evocation of the slaves' future, and that

of their descendants, Christianized in America."36 The last potent signifier is revealed toward the

film's conclusion; the positioning if the Muslim symbol (crescent moon and star) in a totem-like

alignment, positioned at the pinnacle behind the idolatry carved on the king's throne. After news

of the king's death, the Imam now sits at the throne in a striking image with full frame shots and

downward pans that are impactful for the viewer as well as the Ceddo spectators in the mise en

scène.

These multiple signifying components of larger machines coalesce at the film's nighttime

revolution scene. The frame is extremely dark and one can barely decipher Muslim figures

carrying torches to preemptively launch an attack on the village. The scene reads as Bogue

articulates: "In some instances, one senses that some kind of machine is functioning, but it is

hard to discern all of its parts or how they interact."37 Through the flames of a close-up bonfire,

viewers recognize the Samp, which has had a diminishing presence as the film progressed, being

burned as Ceddo tradition is irrevocably being destroyed.

While we have analyzed relations of smooth and striated space in Ceddo, along with

signifying components linking to larger machines, perhaps the most important aspect of the film

has to do with that of language in relation to Major and Minor Literature and lines–particularly

lines of flight. There is a distinction to be drawn between the visual and auditory tradition of the

Griot, a West African narrator or storyteller, and the Griot's depiction in the film amongst an

entire script of formal and declamatory addresses, with characters often speaking through

intermediaries.38 Bogue's following quote is particularly relevant:

D'Alessandro 14

'[M]ajor' and 'minor' [are] 'two different treatments of language'. Deleuze argues that minor usages of language allow . . . 'continuous variation'. Whereas the structuralist distinction between langue and parole suggests that there is [also] an underlying set of rules or constraints . . . Deleuze argues that language ought to be understood as 'a multiplicity of semantic worlds' in which all possible differences of meaning are virtually present.39

Ceddo's script is dominantly formal and in accordance with attributes of Major Language.

Arguably, the only instances in the film of Minor Language (structural stutterings) derive from

the crying babies in the auditory background of village meetings; the innocents amongst the

feuding authorities. Through all of the instances of formal Major Language, Ceddo director

Sembène treats them all relatively equally in so far as they get to speak and are self-present.

However, as no single perspective is the truth, the film is about the fact that language has to

emerge from these warring conflicts, structures and voices. "Speech, Deleuze suggests, must be

treated as a 'real activity'–as a doing, rather than as representation–and words understood as an

expression of a 'will'. This is particularly important with regard to the statement of 'truths' which,

Deleuze insists, ought not to be dissociated from the wanting that drives them."40 This element of

want or desire translates to language as a mode of action for Deleuze, and it is within a broad

domain of practices and power relations that language at once follows and generates lines of

flight. Elisabeth Grosz references this through a Deleuzean lens as a "theory of individuation or

actualization . . . a theory of intensive processes of becoming involving spontaneous

spatiotemporal dynamisms or . . . processes of self-organization."41 Thus the determination of all

of these warring voices–Ceddo, Indigenous Elites, the Imam and the Muslim converts–make the

Language Machine in Ceddo a determinate force. As Bogue puts it, "language is inextricably

intertwined with its contexts of performance. Each semantic unit is an actualization of a virtual

D'Alessandro 15

continuum of speech-acts that execute incorporeal transformations of bodies, and every use of

language takes place within larger structure of actions and forces."42

Supplementary notes on language are also of value when we consider the disrupting and

disconcerting auditory element of English-language Gospel music played during sequences

depicting slaves and the Christian priest's lure as an alternative to Islam. It is also important to

note that Ceddo has been banned from its country of production, Senegal, "allegedly for

misspelling its one-word title–a perversely fitting fate for a film that scrutinizes the politics of

language and the erosion of an orally-based culture."43 Lastly, in my personal experience of

watching the film, I was interested and amused to find that the version I had downloaded

contained French hard subtitles for the Wolof-speaking characters, and optional English soft

subtitles, which were always overlaid. Thus in my viewing of the film, three different language

translations were going on simultaneously.

Lastly, I'd like to point to the film's climactic and inspiring act of resistance, where the

absence of language is utilized as a structuring device. Upon the return of Princess Dior Yassine,

who was captive in the bush where she learned of her father's death and came to understand the

Ceddo's plight, she returns to her village. Her home is now in a complete state of disarray and the

Imam has replaced her father on the throne. Without a word, she dismounts her horse and

deliberately paces down the interstice of the two terrains; that of the enslaved Ceddo and the

totalitarian Muslim elites. The metaphorical nature of this stretch of land between the

oppositional forces is rich with potential for rebuilding her people from the remains and gaps that

are present. Furthermore, the silence provides the most pregnant moment in the entire film for

the possibility for a structuring power to come into play: a people to come. The princess

D'Alessandro 16

continues her silent stride and swiftly disarms one of the Muslim guards of his rifle while other

Ceddo also silently take arms in resistance. Particularly brave Ceddo put their mouth on the rifle

barrels while a mother aims the barrel directly at the baby in her arms to successfully immobilize

the enemy.

The following shot as she approaches the Imam with the steady rifle is of critical

importance. The scene cuts to a shot of dirt with her encroaching shadow filling the frame.

Earlier in the film, her Muslim convert father, King Demba War, is scolded for his callous

actions by his urgent nephew:

Madir Faim Fall: There is a worm in your fruit, Uncle. He wields more authority than you. It is he who is the misfortune . . . Uncle, your throne is corrupt. You are a palm tree that does not cast a shadow on its roots.44

It is for this reason that that the shot of the princess with her shadow on the dirt prior to

the assassination of the Imam is so precisely constructed. With a single shot from the rifle, the

Imam falls and the camera zooms in on the princess' stoic expression, yet tear-filled eyes. Like

Deleuze and Guittari, I too "reject any notion of revolutionary action as aimed toward the

realization of a plan or design of an ideal society. Rather, revolutionary action proceeds through

metamorphosis, change and becoming, through the transformation of a present intolerable

situation."45 Dior slowly glances over her shoulder and then walks away from the Ceddo and

immediately through the Muslim converts, again in silence. Her destination is unknown, her next

intentions are unknown, and it is for this very reason that the fabulative ending–or is it

beginning?– is in some regards destabling, lending itself to maximum potentiality. We are left

with what Bogue would declare "the invention of a people-to-come, the creation of a collective

D'Alessandro 17

identity for the revolutionary group-in-formation.46 This particular moment in Senegal history

could have gone in any direction.

We too are now empowered to go in any direction with the theoretical overview acquired

through reading this analysis. We have examined selected works by Deleuze, Guattari and Bogue

on topics including smooth and striated space in relation to Minor and Major Literature, lines of

flight, transversals, and lastly, people to come. After explicating the major points of these topics,

we extrapolated their relevance in Ousmane Sembène's Ceddo, a film selected for its effulgent

coalescence of these interpenetrating theories.

When princess Dior returns from the bush to her village, she is forever a changed person.

Perhaps through this analysis and witnessing such a striking film, so too are we.

D'Alessandro 18

Muddled inheritance patterns are depicted through the extensive princess Dior betrothal debate.

Female Ceddo spooling raw cotton into thread around a stick, as opposed to Indonesian traded fabrics.

Saxewar's garb doesn't blend with the bush landscape and mirrored accessory reveals his position.

Madir Faim Fall discards his Muslim robe, renouncing the religion and his status as a noble.

D'Alessandro 19

Metonymic components of larger machines: Imam's Muslim Rosary.

Metonymic components of larger machines: Ceddo ceremonial Samp.

Ceddo slaves are branded with the fleur de lys, the emblem of monarchical France

Ceddo tradition is irrevocably destroyed by burning the Samp during nighttime revolution.

D'Alessandro 20

Muslim symbol atop a totem-like alignment, above the idolatry carved on the king's throne.

Brave Ceddo put their mouth on the rifle barrels to successfully immobilize the enemy.

Critical shot in response to the line, "You are a palm tree that does not cast a shadow on its roots."

Dior's destination and next intentions are unknown; destabilizing ending with maximum potential for a people to come.

D'Alessandro 21

Notes 1 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, "The Smooth and the Striated," A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), ix. 2 Deleuze and Guattari, 474. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 493. 5 Ibid., 494. 6 Ibid., 478. 7 Ibid., 480. 8 Ibid., 494. 9 Ibid., 478. 10 Ibid., 482. 11 Ibid., 480. 12 Ibid., 489. 13 Ibid., 477. 14 Ronald Bogue, "Introduction," Deleuze on Literature (New York: Routledge Press, 2003), 4. 15 Ronald Bogue, "Conclusion," Deleuze on Literature (New York: Routledge Press, 2003), 188. 16 Ronald Bogue, "Kafka's Law Machine," Deleuze on Literature (New York: Routledge Press, 2003), 89. 17 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, "The Smooth and the Striated," A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 500.

18 Ronald Bogue, "Life, Lines, Visions, Auditions," Deleuze on Literature (New York: Routledge Press, 2003), 157.

19 Bogue, 162. 20 Ibid., 154. 21 Ibid., 156. 22 Ibid., 152.

23 Josh Lerner, "About Lines of Flight," http://www.linesofflight.net/linesofflight.htm (accessed December 5, 2010).

24 Bogue, 154. 25 Ibid., 155.

D'Alessandro 22

26 Ibid., 5. 27 Ibid., 156. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 159. 30 Colin Gardner, "Of Nomads, Rhizomes, and Speed: Toward an Ontology of Smooth Space in 'Third'

Cinema" (1993-1994), 2.

31 Ceddo, dir. Ousmane Sembène, perf. Tabara N’Diaye, Moustapha Yade, Ismaila Diagne, DVD, New Yorker Films, 1976, time: 0:58:35.

32 Steven Shaviro, "God, or The Body Without Organs," Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), 122.

33 Michael Dembrow, "Ceddo," http://spot.pcc.edu/~mdembrow/ceddo.htm (accessed December 5, 2010). 34 Ibid.

35 James Leahy, "Ceddo," Senses of Cinema, http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/33/ceddo.html (accessed December 5, 2010).

36 Ibid. 37 Bogue, 77.

38 Michael Martin, "Sembène, a Griot of Modern Times," Cinemas of Black Diaspora (Michigan: Wayne State UP, 1995), 121.

39 Laura Cull, "Introduction," Deleuze and Performance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009), 9. 40 Ibid., 8-9.

41 Elizabeth Grosz, "Deleuze Diagrams and the Open-Ended Becoming," Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory, and Futures (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1999), 32.

42 Bogue, 190.

43 "929. Ceddo," Shooting Down Pictures, http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/2007/07/929-ceddo-1977-ousmane-sembene/ (accessed December 5, 2010).

44 Ceddo, time: 1:04:03. 45 Bogue, 84. 46 Ibid., 168.

D'Alessandro 23

Works Cited

"929. Ceddo." Shooting Down Pictures. <http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/2007/07/929-ceddo- 1977-ousmane-sembene>. Bogue, Ronald. "Conclusion." Deleuze on Literature. New York: Routledge Press, 2003: 187- 192. Bogue, Ronald. "Introduction." Deleuze on Literature. New York: Routledge Press, 2003: 1-8. Bogue, Ronald. "Kafka's Law Machine." Deleuze on Literature. New York: Routledge Press, 2003: 59-90. Bogue, Ronald. "Life, Lines, Visions, Auditions." Deleuze on Literature. New York: Routledge Press, 2003: 151-186. Ceddo, dir. Ousmane Sembène, perf. Tabara N’Diaye, Moustapha Yade, Ismaila Diagne, DVD, New Yorker Films, 1976. Cull, Laura."Introduction." Deleuze and Performance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009: 1-21. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. "The Smooth and the Striated." A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987: 474- 500. Dembrow, Michael. "Ceddo." <http://spot.pcc.edu/~mdembrow/ceddo.htm>. Gardner, Colin. "Of Nomads, Rhizomes, and Speed: Toward an Ontology of Smooth Space in 'Third' Cinema." 1993-1994. Grosz, Elisabeth. "Deleuze Diagrams and the Open-Ended Becoming." Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory, and Futures. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1999: 29-41. Leahy, James. "Ceddo." Senses of Cinema. <http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/33/ceddo.html>. Lerner, Josh. "About Lines of Flight." <http://www.linesofflight.net/linesofflight.htm>. Martin, Michael."Sembène, a Griot of Modern Times." Cinemas of Black Diaspora. Michigan: Wayne State UP, 1995: 118-128. Shaviro, Steven. "God, or The Body Without Organs." Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009: 99-142.